Kaiju-sized comics
Godzilla has had quite a storied history over the years in terms of his comic book output.
WITH Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire in cinemas now, this seems like a good time to take a look at the iconic giant lizard’s comic book history.
Godzilla has of course been featured on countless anime and manga in Japan, so for brevity’s sake, we’ll only be focusing on the major Western comics that have featured the monster.
The Marvel years
The first ever US comic series to feature Godzilla was published by none other than Marvel Comics in 1977. Then Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee had acquired the license from Toho, and subsequently assigned the legendary artist Herb Trimpe and writer Doug Moench to kickstart the series, which eventually ran for 24 issues until 1979.
The fun thing about this series was that Godzilla was actually part of Marvel’s main Earth-616 universe, so we got Marvel superheroes like the Avengers, the Champions and so on trying to stop his disastrous rampages (or at least, limit the damage. he caused)
However, in order to make sure that their own superheroes don’t look too bad from getting their butts kicked by Godzilla all the time, Marvel decided to mainly use supporting characters like Dum Dum Dugan and Jimmy Woo as the leads in the comic, with superheroes making ‘guest appearances’ most of the time. They also made sure Godzilla never attacked New York City, which is where most of Marvel’s more popular heroes operated.
The Dark Horse force
The next company to acquire the Godzilla comics license was Dark Horse Comics in 1987, who finally made Godzilla the star of his own comics rather than sharing time with other characters.
Godzilla’s first Dark Horse appearance came in Dark Horse Comics #10, but the first real Godzilla book was a black and white one-shot called Godzilla, King of The Monsters Special #1.
The one-shot established Dark Horse’s Godzilla continuity, which would continue with the 1992 one-shot Godzilla Color Special, and subsequently, a 17-issue Godzilla ongoing series, which ran from 1995 to 1996.
The series was led by an organisation called G-force, formed by the United
Nations and the Japanese Selfdefense Forces (JSDF) as part of the UN Godzilla Countermeasures Centre.
Unfortunately, Dark Horse only released one major ongoing series, focusing mostly on oneshots, mini-series and reprints for most of their time with the license.
IDW goes kaiju-mad
A strange quirk in the Marvel and Dark Horse comic books was the conspicuous absence of Toho’s other kaiju, such as Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah andsoon.
That changed in 2010, when IDW Publishing landed the rights for not just Godzilla, but also the other kaiju he used to go up against.
The company’s first Godzilla series was a 12-issue series called Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters by writers Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh, with art by Phil Hester and Bruce Mccorkindale.
It made its debut in 2011 with one of the most iconic Godzilla comic covers of all time, drawn by the legendary Alex Ross, no less; and was also notable for having a record 100 variant covers, many of which were retailer exclusives.
The story basically revolves around Godzilla’s first appearance in modern Japan, and features a pair of evil twins who are somehow able to control kaiju with their minds.
This of course, leads to Godzilla rampaging around the world fighting the likes of Anguirus and Rodan, as well as Mechagodzilla and King Ghidorath. Kingdom Of Monsters was eventually cancelled in February 2012, and was swiftly followed by yet another ongoing series a few months later, simply called Godzilla, which ran for 13 issues.
The jewel of IDW’S crown, however, was Godzilla: Rulers of Earth, which ran from June 2013 to June 2015, and at 25 issues, beats Marvel Comics to the title of longest-running Western Godzilla comic series by a mere one issue.
The series was arguably the most fan-pleasing one, with gargantuan battles, and even appearances by Jet Jaguar, Space Godzilla, Gigan, a powerful mecha-enhanced Ghidorath and more, so it’s safe to say this series really delivered some kaiju-sized action!
IDW also published some pretty interesting mini-series over the years, including the trippy Godzilla in Hell, which sees the monster literally falling into Hell and basically tearing the place apart!
Another must-read book is Godzilla: The Half-century War ,a five-issue series by writer James Stokoe and artist Heather Beckel.
The story takes place over the course of five decades (hence the name), from 1954 to 2002, and revolves around a man named Ota Murakami and his encounters with Godzilla over those 50 years.